Using NewsHour Extra Feature Stories

Overview: NewsHour Extra features stories can help students identify and interpret key issues in current events. This activity anticipates one class period, but the follow-up essay might be assigned as homework, or in another period.

Warm Up: Use initiating questions to introduce the topic and find out how much your students know.

Main Activity: Have students read NewsHour Extra's feature story and answer the questions on the reading comprehension handout.

Discussion: Use discussion questions to encourage students to think about how the issues outlined in the story affect their lives and express and debate different opinions.

Follow-up: Students can write an 500-word editorial on the topic expressing their views and send it to NewsHour Extra [extra@newshour.org] for possible publication.

Evaluation: Students are graded on their answers to reading comprehension questions and/or their editorial.

Story: The Social Security Debate, 3/3/04
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/features/jan-june04/security_3-03.html

Initiating Questions:

1. What does it mean when someone retires from the workforce?

2. How do people pay for housing, food, etc. if they are no longer working?

3. What is Social Security?

Reading Comprehension Questions: (click here for printout)

1. Why is Alan Greenspan concerned about the nation's Social Security system?

Speaking before a House committee that oversees federal spending, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said he is concerned that the government is in debt more than $4 trillion and currently operating at a deficit -- spending more than it takes in.

2. Who are the Baby Boomers and how might they affect the Social Security system?

Baby Boomers were born during a boom in U.S. child birth rates from the mid-1940s to the 1960s. They will reach retirement age and begin receiving Social Security checks from the government.

3. What is Social Security?

The federal Social Security system provides a continuous income for retired workers over the age of 65. It also provides benefits for disabled workers and for family members of deceased workers. President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act into law in 1935.

As part of the program, working Americans pay "Social Security tax" -- part of their salary -- into the system, a type of savings plan. After retirement, they receive money every month to pay bills and other financial obligations.

4. How is the Social Security system administered?

Today 45 million people receive Social Security benefits. The government maintains and expands the program through investments. But, while its costs are under control now, the program could be in debt by 2028. And because of the large budget deficit and growing debt, the government would have no money to subsidize the program without major changes, according to Greenspan.

5. What is President Bush's proposal for securing Social Security and balancing the budget?

President Bush's plan allows younger workers to invest part of their Social Security taxes in individual savings accounts, an approach called privatization.

"As we continue to work together to keep Social Security strong and reliable, we must offer younger workers a chance to invest in retirement accounts that they will control and they will own," he said in his 2003 State of the Union Address.

He argues that money invested in the stock market would grow much faster than if it is cycled through the traditional Social Security program. While many Democrats say the stock market is too risky, and workers could lose their money if stock prices go down, the president says he would create a program to help workers diversify their investments and not "have all of their 'eggs in one basket.'"

6. Why does Sen. John Kerry oppose the president's plan?

Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry is against privatization and blames the president's tax cuts for wealthy Americans for ruining the economy and endangering Social Security.

"I am strongly opposed to privatizing or partially privatizing Social Security because it would leave beneficiaries vulnerable to instability in the financial markets and would cost $1 trillion to pay for, a cost we cannot afford given our skyrocketing deficits and faltering economy," he told the Online NewsHour.

 

Discussion Activity (more research might be needed):

1. Several options are mentioned in the story: raising the retirement age; lowering the yearly benefit increase; allowing workers to set up their own accounts and invest in the stock market; not paying benefits to wealthy Americans who do not need it. Which options do you support? Think of some others.

2. Write down different ideas about changing the system and then discuss which groups might oppose or support each idea (i.e. older Americans receiving Social Security might fight smaller yearly increases, 55-year-olds might fight an increase in the retirement age, financial companies might want more people to invest in the stock market). How much power do these groups have? How do they influence lawmakers?

3. Many people in their teens and twenties believe the issue of Social Security does not affect them. After reading more about Social Security, explain why young people should be concerned about government policy on Social Security?

Write a 300-500 word essay on any of these topics providing clear examples. Send your completed editorial to NewsHour Extra [extra@newshour.org]. Exceptional essays might be published on our Web site.